


Sleep Awake

by Qpenguin98



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Consensual Possession, Depression, Dissociation, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Post-Canon, Sharing a Body, its like that sometimes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-04
Updated: 2019-01-04
Packaged: 2019-10-04 03:25:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,290
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17296832
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Qpenguin98/pseuds/Qpenguin98
Summary: "Barry knows that the worst of it is over. The Hunger is defeated, Lup’s back, he has his body back, his family back, they aren’t going to ghost jail for the rest of their undeath. It’s over. He can stop stressing over every little thing and go back to normal."Barry has a bit of a hard time fitting himself into a world that was never really his to begin with.





	Sleep Awake

Barry knows that the worst of it is over. The Hunger is defeated, Lup’s back, he has his body back, his family back, they aren’t going to ghost jail for the rest of their undeath. It’s over. He can stop stressing over every little thing and go back to normal.

But normal for him has always been relative, and there’s nothing to base it on now. There’s no Starblaster anymore, and his normal for the past ten years has been sitting in a cave waiting for a body to grow so that he could forget everything he knew all over again. There’s no real normal for him to settle into easily but it’s fine. He has his family back and that’s what matters.

Kravitz has offered him and Lup jobs as reapers and it’s an offer he literally can’t turn down, seeing as the alternative is death prison, and he really doesn’t feel like getting split up and isolated from everyone again any time soon. And even that, that seems like an unnecessary thought in his head, some selfish response to his ten years in comparison to everyone else’s. He wasn’t exactly alone when he was alive during that time, and when he was dead he got the privilege of remembering, and no one close to him died enough for it to be permanent and he’s still  _ here _ and whole and alive after all of it and he gets the chance to stay that way. It wasn’t bad, he tells himself. It wasn’t, and he knows that, so why does it feel awful?

He needs to do something, he thinks one morning, staring straight ahead at the ceiling. There’s no use in trying to sleep any more, that ship had sailed hours ago. Lup is with Kravitz today, reaper training that he’s already done, so he has the day off.

He doesn’t want the day off.

So he rolls out of bed and shuffles into the kitchen, grabbing a pan and some eggs. Taako will probably be awake soon, but he needs to do something, and he’s fairly good at eggs. He mixes them in a bowl with a fork, staring idly at the pan while it heats. He has enough sense to pour them in, flipping them around a bit to scramble them better, making sure they don’t burn. There’s some creaking from a room farther in the house, but it doesn’t matter. The eggs are almost done, and he can chop up some peppers or something to go with it for breakfast. 

Barry turns off the burner and grabs a portion onto a plate for himself. He’s not exactly hungry but he should eat. He needs energy for… something. He’ll figure out something to do in this off time. He wishes he were with them, catching some bounty or learning new magics. Lup’s body still isn’t done so he can check on that, but that can only take up so much of his time. 

“You made eggs?” Taako says from the doorway, pajamas on and hair up in a bun. He waves his fork as an answer while he finishes chewing.

“Figured I’d help out with breakfast a little.”

He walks over to the stove and scoops up some eggs for himself, leaning against the counter with his plate and fork. Barry feels a little squirmy with him looking at him like this, some odd sort of anxiety that he hasn’t felt in a long long time. He ignores it in favor of putting another forkful of egg in his mouth. It doesn’t really taste like anything, falling apart in pieces under his teeth, and he swallows harshly. 

“You need any help with anything today?” He asks, hopeful, desperate. Taako raises an eyebrow at him.

“You got the day off of mandatory job training and you’re still trying to do stuff? Damn Bluejeans, that’s dedication to being busy all the time. And nah, I’m might go into town a bit for some groceries, but I don’t really need help with that. ‘Sides, you hate the public attention.”

He’s right, he does hate the attention, but he hates this useless feeling in his gut. He spent ten years doing nothing and waiting, he just wants to be useful. But he nods and sighs, finishing off his plate and rising it in the sink.

“I’m going down to the lab, then,” he says, shoving his hands in his pockets. “If you need anything, just come grab me.”

“Mhm,” Taako says, pursing his mouth at him and Barry grimaces. “Have fun with your spooky shit.”

He makes his way downstairs to the lab area, glancing at the green glow of the tank. Lup’s body looks fine, but he checks up on everything anyway. It’s not done, but it’s getting closer. Another two months and it should be done. It’ll be done and then there really won’t be anything to worry about anymore. Not that there’s anything to worry about now. Her body is fine and growing and healthy and so, so close to done. He can hold her and she can feel things and be alive again and corporeal and touch things and be herself.

Not that she isn’t herself like this. She’s Lup. She could never be anything but. But it was always hard for the both of them when one of them was a lich for a year. And now this, so close to being able to hold her but still too far away, it’s agonizing. He wants and he feels bad for wanting because she’s  _ here _ , they’re all here, it’s selfish to want for something that he already practically has. Everything is fine. Things are okay.

He presses a hand to the tank and closes his eyes, letting himself breathe for a second. He needs to get ahold of himself, especially before Lup gets back. There’s no reason for him to be like this.

So he sits at his desk and rifles through old notebooks, going through old research and updating it, adding in new stuff and rewriting it all to be a bit more coherent. It’s easy to lose himself in this, and that’s exactly what he needs to do. He needs to get over himself and his feelings and get used to this life he’s living. This is where he’s at now and it’s such a good place. He just needs to figure that out.

One of the notebooks he rifles through ends up having dual notes, both from him and from Lup. They’d tried keeping the same notes that year, tired of repeating things to each other from separate notebooks. Her handwriting overlaps with his in some places, scribbling out a word or two that he’d written down. Her letters are thin and tall and scrunched together, taking up both a little and a lot of space. His are more spaced out, a little more franticly written, and the contrast to close to each other is interesting. He rubs his fingertips over the bumps and the indents of the pen and gets hit with such painful nostalgia that he closes his eyes, covering his face with his hands. 

He’s not really sure how long he stays like that, lips pressed thin and eyes closed tight. His breathing has a funny hitch in it and his shoulders are maybe shaking, but it’s fine. He just needs a minute. Or two. Maybe a couple more than that. He’s got it. He’s got this. 

“Hey babe!” Lup’s voice jerks him out of his hunched up state and his sits up straight, turning to find her. She’s floating near the bottom of the stairs, form stable and real and there and real and visible and real and real and real. “Whatcha doing? Taako said you’d been down here all day.”

All day? How long as he been down here? “Just going over some old notes. Not much I can really do on a day off.”

“I dunno about that,” she says, floating over, looking over his shoulder. “Oh! It’s this notebook. I’d almost forgotten about that.”

She stays there, just over his shoulder, and he can almost feel the phantom touch of her energy, so close, too far away, and he swallows harshly, fists his hands in his lap. He can feel her pause, feel the shift in energy.

“Barry?”

“We thought this was such a good idea,” he says instead of anything useful. “Like— Like sharing a notebook was going to fix everything. It didn’t help much.”

“It was fun though,” she says as gently as she can in her lich form. “Scribbling over each other’s stuff? Little drawings in the margins? Notes of random stuff just for each other? Kinda sweet.”

“Yeah,” he says, thumbing at the page. “Do you ever miss it?”

“Sometimes,” she says, quicker and easier than he would have expected. “I mean, don’t get me wrong, not having to run from an interplanar monster that Merle was best friends with is excellent. I love that and this and everything that’s happened since we kicked its ass. But it’s had not to miss what you had for a hundred years, Bar. It was nice, being close to everyone without all the shit that’s between us now. I know you miss it, too.”

He stops breathing for a second, blinking. Is it that obvious? His selfish, awful wants to be right back where they were, running forever from the end but so much closer and more comfortable with everyone. 

“Hey,” she says softly. “You alright? You’ve been acting kind of… I dunno. Sad’s not the word for it, but sad I guess.”

“I’m fine,” he says, and wishes that he ever learned how to be a convincing liar. “Just overthinking stuff.”

“As always,” she teases, and he smiles a little. “But really. You know you can talk to me, I know you do. But you’re not. And I kinda wanna know why?”

He opens his mouth to answer her but nothing comes out. His hand shakes a bit and he closes it tighter, staring down at the page. “Sorry,” he says quietly. “Fuck, I can’t.”

“Babe, it’s okay,” she’s placating, spectral hand phasing through his shoulder, so close, so close, and he aches. It does give him and idea. He wants to be transparent with her, but he can’t bring himself to say the words. It’s selfish and awful but she deserves to know what he’s thinking, even if he can’t tell her himself.

“I want to tell you but I… you could possess me? And look?”

“Barry,” she says seriously. “You hate possession.”

“I don’t hate it,” he says, a little petulant. “I just get overwhelmed sometimes. But I just… gods Lup you’re so close and I need  _ something _ . And I can’t make myself say it so if you want to know you’re gonna have to.”

He can feel her sigh in the air around them, a heavy thing that settles into his skin.

“If you really, really want me to I will, but the second you get too overwhelmed I’m leaving, okay?”

“Okay,” he says, and his nerves are spinning, anticipation and dread and love all over and he’s not really sure how to decipher which one’s which. 

She floats around in front of him, and he can’t see her face but he knows how serious it would be if she had one right now. Lup reaches a hand out, gingerly pressing through his chest, a hollow sort of feeling, rooting around a bit until she finds what she’s looking for. The feeling of her hand wrapping around his soul is always a jarring one and he jumps a bit before relaxing back down. She disappears and her soul wraps around his.

He takes in a breath of air and his lungs feel a little tight, working for two people in one body, She feels warm and familiar and he’s choking on air at the feeling of her being there and real and surrounding him.

_ Jeez, babe, it’s just me _ .

But it’s more than just her, it’s  _ Lup _ , and she’s never been a ‘just’ anything. She’s around him and inside of him and warm and her soul is mingling with his and it’s almost everything that he’s wanted for days and months and years. 

He can feel her rooting around a bit, looking for what it is he can’t voice, finding that selfish want need to have her and everyone back and close and to never let them go again, to be back on the Starblaster, back where it wasn’t safe, but it was home and it was some kind of steady normal that didn’t hurt to be in every minute he was there. His ten years wasn’t half as bad as hers but he’s so much more needy, more desperate for something he used to have that he isn’t going to get back, that he wants with every fiber of his being, though he knows its better now, even if his brain hasn’t caught onto that.

_ You’re not needy, Barry. And wanting things to go back to the way they were doesn’t make you selfish. _

But he is and he knows it. He’s needy and despicable and tired. He’s so tired. He can’t focus on anything and he needs to do something, but he can’t do anything because there’s nothing to be done anymore. There’s nothing he can do that’s useful at this point and it hurts. It hurts to be useless, because he spent ten years being useless. Ten years of being alone and doing nothing for anybody but making bodies and dying in stupid, stupid ways. 

He can feel her in his heart and his throat and his lungs and his head, swelling with emotion and he chokes, overwhelmed, desperately happy to be able to feel her in some way, hunching over and holding a hand over his chest to keep her in, to make sure she knows he doesn’t want, can’t possibly bear the thought of wanting her to leave.

Tears prick in his eyes and Barry gasps in a breath, squeezing his eyes shut to fight off the crying that he knows is inevitable. 

_ Bar, I… I don’t think I’m really doing you many favors in here— _

“No,” he chokes out. “Don’t leave.”

He can feel her sigh and relax back into him, wrapping her soul more comfortably around his, and he stops trying to not cry and just gives in, wrapping his arms around himself because it feels a tinge more like she’s holding him. She seen him cry too many times for him to count, that’s not the problem. The problem is that she can feel what he’s feeling. That self centered relief of having her here. 

She waits until he’s more collected, less weepy and more himself, and she lets go of him, removing herself from his body. Breathing’s a little easier, but he still wants her there, close by.

“Alright,” she says, and she sounds sad and frustrated. “You’re gonna listen to me, okay?”

“Okay?” He’s not sure what she’s going to say, but he doesn’t like this just listening thing.

“You’re not selfish, Barry. You’re allowed to have fucking emotions. You don’t have to bottle everything up just because you think your ten years wasn’t the worst ten years out there. Just because you want things to be normal again and you want everyone back and you want  _ me _ back doesn’t make you needy or selfish, it makes you alive, alright? You’re allowed to want because we’re all wanting that, okay? We all want out brains to stop acting fucky and for out heads to start feeling like this is normal because it so obviously isn’t normal, even if your normal was a shitty ten years alone in a cave.”

“But you—”

“I know I was in an umbrella for ten years, babe. I was there for it. And if we’re calling anyone useless, it’s me. I literally didn’t do shit for ten years and sat there stuck in my own stupid umbrella while everyone got their shit wrecked by Fisher. But I’m not calling anyone useless. You did stuff, Barry. You went out there and found out what was happening and you tried your best with what you had and maybe it didn’t always work but you  _ did _ something. God, babe, I love having you back, but sometimes you’re a little dense. You’re not useless or selfish or needy or any of that, you’re hurting. You have emotions and that’s okay.”

“Emotions didn’t really do me any good in the cave.”

“Man, we took really different approaches to being alone for ten years. Emotions were kind all I had there for a good while. Plenty of time to think things over and figure out what’s real and not.”

“I’m sorry,” he says, slumping. He wishes he weren’t causing her these feelings, this sad frustration that he can tell she has. He wants her to be wrong, but he knows she isn’t. He’s hurting and he doesn’t know how to deal with it, and now it’s out in the open and he can’t ignore it. 

“You don’t have to be, okay? You don’t have to be sorry for your  _ emotions _ , fuck babe. You’re allowed to be kinda fucked u after everything that happened. Gods know the rest of us aren’t doing too much better.”

And that he can believe. He can believe that she isn’t doing well after being trapped in an umbrella for ten years because he can see it in the way she acts around dark spaces and quiet times and when people don’t acknowledge her right away. And that Taako isn’t exactly all peachy keen after realizing he actually had a sister and people that cared about him and that he spent ten years alone after never being alone in his over two hundred years of being alive. And that the rest of them feel lost after losing everything and so suddenly getting it back. Even Lucretia, dealing with everything that’s happened and her family’s reactions to it. None of them are fine, he realizes, and it’s comforting.

“You catching on yet, babe?”  

“Yeah,” he says quietly, rubbing his hands together, needing to move something. “Yeah I’m— I got it. Gods, sorry. I’ve just been acting like I’m the only one that has anything to worry about.”

“I think you did the exact opposite thing, but whatever helps you realize that you’re not alone. I love you. We all love you. And I’m so glad to be back here with you again.”

“I’m so happy you’re back,” he says, suddenly needing her to know that it isn’t just dismal empty emotions happening inside of him. “I love you and I missed you and I’m so glad you’re back.”

“I know, babe. And ditto. I love you. I’m happy you’re here.” Her form is fuzzy, soft, something that only happens when she’s relaxed a bit. He relaxes too. Things are fine. For real this time.

“Come on,” she says, floating up and to the other side of the room. Time to get out of this basement. We’ve got the rest of the day to get you in the sun.”

He snorts, but he stands. He still feels a little hollow, a little like he’s draining the world with every want and need he has, but it’s better. She gets it. She’s here and she loves him and that’s not going to change. 

“Yeah, alright,” he says, stretching out and following her.

He’s got a while to go before things feel normal and familiar, but right now Lup’s here, and she’s nothing but understanding to his feelings, and that’s all he needs.

**Author's Note:**

> hewwo it is late and i am tired  
> this is probably not my best work but god i just wanted some postcanon blupjeans hurt comfort. no one ever writes that and i wanted it. so here you go!!


End file.
